


From Thin Air

by ThatwasJustaDream



Category: Hawaii Five-0 (2010)
Genre: Community: 1-million-words, Community: h50-reversebang, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-08-01
Updated: 2014-08-01
Packaged: 2018-02-11 07:20:58
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 4
Words: 10,788
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2059065
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ThatwasJustaDream/pseuds/ThatwasJustaDream
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Danny Williams takes a tumble while chasing a suspect and lands in a place that feels like the strangest dream ever. Problem is... it isn't. *Note- major character death, but entirely temporary*</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Ass-End Up in Tropical Crazytown

**Author's Note:**

  * Translation into Polski available: [Ni Stąd, Ni Zowąd](https://archiveofourown.org/works/11753331) by [MobyDick](https://archiveofourown.org/users/MobyDick/pseuds/MobyDick)



> Written for the H50 Reverse!Bang - [click for the artwork that inspired it from the wonderful Galadriel34 right here!](http://i1121.photobucket.com/albums/l507/NCISVU/danny-reversbang1.jpg) Sorry I couldn't make it a full-on Stargate story, Gala, but I hope you enjoy it. Big thanks to Kaige68 for beta reading it for me!

The first thing that struck Danny was how good it smelled - the air around him. Warm and wet, full of thick, green foliage with notes of flowers.

Flowers?

He opened his eyes and saw stars; black sky, a faint field of silvery pinpoints straight overhead. There was light pollution on the edges, yeah, but nothing near the headache-inducing levels of city glare he was used to on his night shift beat.

It hurt when he stood up – mostly in his left shoulder, as if he had landed on it. His left ass cheek ached, too, and his hands had abrasions. From catching himself as he landed on tarmac, maybe? That would tend to do it.

“I am still unconscious,” he said it aloud as he shook himself, adjusted his uniform jacket, started to walk from the nearly empty parking lot to the front of the huge building beyond. “Gotta be out like a light. Only explanation.”

Lucid dreaming – he’d heard of the concept, had wished he might experience it but never had; walking, feeling the ground underfoot, the pains in his muscles nipping, biting at him …all in his ‘sleep.’

So weird.

It was brighter on the front lawn. A long, grassy strip and a sidewalk led to a city street with only a few people on it, cars headed in all directions, going about their night. A business district. He jumped, heart beating faster when he saw the trees dotting the street corners and one side of the building opposite: Palm trees, every one.

Beyond weird. Impossible. More proof he was in la-la land.

The giant wooden doors on the main entrance of the building were open, and the security desk inside had no one at it at the moment. A bottle of water on the desk was sweating, cool to the touch – the guard probably hit the bathroom for a second.

“Let’s take a walksie, see who we find inside…”

He regretted the assumption the second the words came out of his mouth. What if there were no ‘whos’ in there, just ‘whats?’ Like maybe rabid hyenas with vampire fangs, or aliens with saucer eyes, slits for mouths and unnervingly long, slender weapons glowing in their grey-green hands?

Who knew what might inhabit a hallucinatory world?

He had been chasing a suspect a minute ago; the matriarch of a family of grifters and phony psychics ripping off families all over New Jersey and New York City. The detectives in his precinct were pushing hard to find them-- to catch her, especially, their kingpin. Or would it be queenpin?

Danny had been more than happy to throw himself both into the hunt and into taking her down himself when they sprung the trap. Who knew what it might do for his career, scoring a collar like that at his tender age, not even twenty-five yet?

Naturally she had to trip and fall, and right when he had more momentum than braking power…

_Must have hit my head?_

He felt around it, fingers pressing into his skull as he peered into dark, locked office after dark office on the first floor.

Nope, no bumps or bruises; all felt well in the cabeza department.

Then he saw it: The one space in the building still lit up, people moving around inside, working. He could see at least two of them through the blinds; one of them very tall, a guy standing inside an internal office. Another person was in the central, shared area-- a girl, from her silhouette. He thought he glimpsed a third shadow further back.

Maybe talking to someone would snap him the hell to, Danny thought. After all, how many detailed conversations do you have in a dream? None. Why? Because you start talking to people but your brain doesn’t have their half of the dialogue. Then you wake up.

Or, God forbid he should be so lucky, maybe the people inside would be beautiful and he’d get horizontal with them. Except then he would absolutely wake up, ‘cause life sucks like that.

He put his hand on the door and pushed, and it opened.

Either way it worked out? This was worth a shot. 

~*~

“Excuse me, miss…”

He heard how he was putting something soft, deferential in his voice – and wow, that was so not like him. He did it because he knew he must look kind of scary; could feel the sweat in his short hair dripping into his collar, his work shirt sticking to him. Cripes…it was like he fell in a puddle, maybe, though he hadn’t seen one when he got up. There was mud streaking his uniform slacks.

“Can you help me? I….”

It would be comical if it weren’t awful; the way her face froze when she turned to look at him, draining of blood and wrinkling, terror adding fifty years to her as she screamed. It was soul piercing; worse than any mechanical alarm he’d ever heard and baby he’d heard some doozies.

Two things were for sure: His odds of getting dream-laid were now zip, and if that guard wasn’t still in the Men’s room, then he was on his way here.

“No, no don’t …” Danny reached toward her, palms out. “Please, stop, I won’t hurt you I swear…I just need….”

He wasn’t sure why he was defending himself so hard; he didn’t look that bad. Plus, she had a badge on her belt! What kind of damn cop was she?

“On your knees! Hands behind your….”

The barked order from behind them caught Danny off guard; he did as told before he even saw him – guy about his size coming at him, gun drawn, clearly defending his coworker. He didn’t scream, but he did go just as ghostly pale as she had, drawing down his weapon and turning back to where she was crouched to go comfort her.

“Hey…look, I’ve only been a cop a couple of years,” Danny stayed in the position demanded of him but he shifted on his knees, hearing the shake in his own voice. “But I know this is an inappropriate reaction to someone walking into your office unarmed and asking for help. Right? So… will you please tell me, seriously, why you’re looking at me like I’m the Thing from the Swamp and I’m gonna kill you or something?”

The guy huffed out a morbid laugh but the girl was still sobbing.

Danny stood back up, hands leaving his head to assume the ‘I Surrender’ position and that’s when he saw him – a six foot two inch tall wall of hiking boots, jeans, black polo shirt and muscle, face as pretty and serious as a statue of a Greek god.

Standing there. In his own office doorway, from the look of authority. Staring at Danny.

“You the boss?” Danny let his arms drop to his side. “Please tell me you are cause someone has to help me make sense of… no, wait, oh, no…..don’t…c’mon…”

Gargantuan was headed his way, frown deepening, a crease of concentration setting in between his eyebrows and Danny braced, turning away from the beating that had to be coming. Only …he ended up being held; grabbed by his shirt and pulled in tight, strong arms coiled around him like an overly affectionate octopus was suddenly sqee _eeeeez_ ing him and if this didn’t stop he was gonna …almost …certainly…

“Danny,” The octopus sighed his name, voice breaking, face seeking Danny’s neck and burrowing into it, lungs breathing Danny in gulps, like he was made of oxygen and arms gripping him even tighter. “Fuck, Danny, how? How?”

Pass out. He was passing out, now. Yes, he was.

His last thought was …if he woke up still here? Then he’d know he was oh so very….

~*~

Screwed. 

Not in New Jersey. Still in Tropical Crazytown.

He surfaced on a sofa in Gargantuan’s office, from the look of it – lots of shelving, model ships and pictures in actual frames. He felt his heart pounding again, at the realization that this couldn’t be chalked up to a dream anymore.

“You okay, buddy?”

The guy who had first raced out to protect the girl was sitting on the floor a foot away from him, keeping an eye on him, Danny thought. Danny took the glass of water he offered gladly, gulping, not aware until right now of how desperately thirsty he’d been.

The girl was standing in the far corner of the room – sniffling instead of screaming or sobbing, her eyes red.

“How could I possibly be okay after….”

He tried to sit up but a wave of dizziness and nausea convinced him the arm of the sofa was just the place for his head.

“Max is on the way,” a heavily sorrowful voice said from the desk, and Danny heard the sound of the Big Boss setting an office phone down on its cradle. “Said he’ll be here in ten.”

“I really have to object,” Danny said, eyes still closed, unmoving. “You three are scary enough. But some guy named Max? Sounds…positively terrifying. What, is he CIA? Professional torturer? Retired Nazi? Max is never a good name except for a dog.”

“He’s a physician,” Boss Man said, simply. “We’ll have him swab your cheek, do a DNA test. That’s all, I swear.”

“Oh, yeah – DNA, that’s, like, the hot rage now. They’re ripping open twenty year old crime scene evidence and testing it; convicting people, exonerating people… it’s…really something, a huge, new breakthrough in crime fighting…”

Danny had lifted his head in his enthusiasm at the topic.

They were all looking at him like he was from Mars, again.

“Damn, why do I feel like I’m trapped in an Adams Family Movie?” Danny shook his head against the sofa arm. “Lurch sitting back there at the desk, Morticia letting loose with the bloodcurdling screams. Pugsley ever at my side?”

He heard Pugsley snicker at that.

“Show him,” the girl said, voice flat now, drained of emotion. “Show him the article. He’s tough, he can take it.”

No one said anything for the longest time and then Lurch was walking his way, handing him a huge, flat glass brick with pictures and words on one side and…

“Oh…” he accidentally flicked it with a thumb and the words scrolled, images flying by. “Is this a…. computer screen? Jeez, this looks a little… Trekkie. Trekish. You know?”

“It’s an iPad,” the girl said, and the frown on her face when he snorted was… precious. “What’s so funny?”

“I don’t know, it just sounds… a little feminine producty, no?”

None of them had anything to say to that.

Danny shrugged, read, and flicked; he saw pictures of a funeral – full police honors, dozens of officers and detectives at attention saluting a coffin, police dogs even sitting at attention.

There were other pictures below the article: They featured the three people currently in front of him standing with a man who looked like he was maybe Danny’s uncle. They were accepting an award together. Gargantuan was standing next to the uncle he’d never met, arm around the guy’s shoulder and an actual smile on his Lurchy face and….

“You were colleagues with him,” he murmured it. “Friends?”

“Yeah,” The guy still sitting on the floor at his side said, simply.

“And he…”

“Died. Three weeks ago. Three weeks and two days to be exact.”

“Danny… what year is it?” the girl asked. “For you?”

“What do you mean, what year is it for me? It’s 2000 for all of us, one would presume, unless a huge breach in the laws of physics is what brought me…..” his thumb flicked back to the top of the article – the headline, the dateline and… “Oh, holy…”

2011\. What the hell? Portable computers that were nothing but a screen and a dateline that didn’t looked fudged at all. It was 2011 and….

“That’s _me_. That’s not… someone like me in those pictures, it’s…. _me_?”

“That’s why we called Max,” the Big Boss said, his voice even heavier, as if this was as hard for him as it was for Danny. “He’ll help us figure out what’s going on… and well take it from there. Don’t be scared, okay?”

Danny had a strong feeling that no, things would absolutely not be okay. 

Hell yeah, he was scared.

~*~

"Gotta tell you, doc..."

"While I am a doctor, I have been Max to you for a considerable period of time."

"Okay, gotta tell you Max -- I'm not a fan of that look," Danny glared at the guy currently capping shut a tube full of fluid and some cells scraped from Danny’s left cheek. "I get the feeling you'd like to knock me out, open me up stem to stern and catalogue my guts."

"Well, your hunch is well placed as is befitting a detective. But… no." Max saw the shock on his face, and restrained a smile he clearly would like to have let widen. "I don’t want to do so at all. That would be…redundant. I'm merely examining your face - the bone structure, approximate percentage of subcutaneous fat, the places where I know for a fact you will develop normal aging lines in the next dozen years along your eyes, your forehead..."

"Did you…. call me a detective?"

"I'll have the results tomorrow," Max turned to Steve. "But I can tell you already they will match the samples taken from the body the day Detective Williams died. This isn’t a person like him nor is it a ‘him’ from some other…place. The odds of anyone sharing this precise facial and body structure are impossibly low. This is your Danny."

Max only shrugged apologetically at the pained 'how' all over Steve's face.

"Did he say detective?" Danny asked the silent room again.

"My apologies," Max said, to Danny as much as to Steve. "It slipped out - I hadn't considered that the you standing in front of me is still a Jersey street cop. It will be tricky avoiding missteps like that but.... I suggest you all try not to over-share. Who knows what problems it might cause if we get you home?"

“If?” Danny heard the ‘oh, crap, no…’ in his own voice.

"How can we accomplish that...when we don't know how he's here?" Chin asked.

"I have a good friend who is an esteemed theoretical cosmologist. Commander McGarrett, would you like me to find out about his availability to meet with you all?"

"Can you reach out to him, Max?" Steve said. "But no details, please, ‘til you and I talk again."

"Done,” Max said. “And done. Extremely intriguing to meet you, young Danny.”

“Yeah, thanks. Hey, I’d love to say the same but… honestly I’m underwhelmed. And also freaking relieved needles weren’t involved. Beyond that …I’m just happy to see you go.”

Max was chuckling as he left, and Danny had a feeling it was because at twenty-four he was exactly, precisely who Max thought he would be.

 

~*~

“It’s weird. Wearing your clothes. Your underwear.”

Danny voiced his stress, arms crossed uncomfortably, standing in the kitchen watching Steve clean up.

They’d had a light dinner during which Steve had barely spoken or looked at him, then Steve had shown him the spare room and bathroom, left him with a towel, travel toothbrush and razor along with festive polka dotted yellow boxers and a plain white t-shirt.

“Those aren’t mine,” Steve never looked up, stacking the dishwasher. “They’re only… a little loose on you. Mine would be very baggy. Right?”

“Point taken. So you happen to have extra men’s drawers and tees casually avail…”

“I have family. Friends. People come to visit or stay over, and things get left. That’s all. I assure you they’re clean and pressed and …they’re fine.”

“Got it. Thanks.” 

Danny watched him work the kitchen for a minute, both of them silent.

“I’m not your cup of coffee, right?” He watched Steve almost drop the plate he was drying. 

“That’s it, isn’t it? I’m way too cocky and attitudinal for you, but you had to work with me. The mental conflict over not liking me and my subsequent death…they’re why you went all verclempt and huggy bear when I showed up out of nowhere?”

“Why do you think that?”

“The way you seem to run hot and cold about me. You looked…so relieved when I walked in. Then you turn abrupt, distant. You keep doing it- shifting gears at the sight of me. It’s…conflicted behavior.”

“I think Max had a really good point. You know? About not getting into…”

“Max Schmax….” Danny cut him off. “Admit it; admit my powers of deduction were right once again: The reason you have me stowed away here at your house isn’t ‘cause it’s more remote than Kono or…Chin, is it Chin? Chin’s place. It’s about guilt. You’re not afraid the public will spot the dead hero cop and freak out - you just didn’t like me but you feel guilty as shit I died and….”

“You have _no idea_ what you’re talking about.”

The way that Steve barked it at him– Danny realized at least one of his other instincts had been right: Steve was Army, Marines, Navy, whatever. Former military. With a shit ton of expertise in ‘shut up and listen.’

“You hated me,” Steve went on more softly after a deeply drawn breath. “At first. You never said it but … I’m guessing you muttered it a lot. Then we were frenemies. Then… kind of out of nowhere you became the most important person in my cut-off, solitary life. And that, Danny? I never could have admitted it ‘til I met you. I never would have gotten the words out.”

“Oh….” Danny watched him turn and go right back to wiping down the sink. “We were partners. Like, really partners. I’ve seen that – guys who walked a beat so long, they wouldn’t know how to walk it with anyone else. Am I right, now?”

“Yeah,” Steve rinsed his hands, voice drained. He searched up the dishtowel and dried them, tossing it. “We were….something like that. Feel free to watch TV before you crash, if you want. I know you like to. I brushed up your uniform, steamed your shirt while you were in the shower so they’re ready for you in the a.m. Keep the volume down, okay?”

“Okay. ‘Night.”

“’Night.”

Danny watched him go, and for the first time all day he felt genuinely bad for someone other than himself. Didn’t mean he had a clue what to do about it, unfortunately. Or that he wouldn’t give his left nut to wake up in his own bed, back in Jersey and shot free of them all.

Somehow he knew that wouldn’t happen.


	2. The Penstroke, the Genius and the Bumpy Road Ahead

The label on the black boxer briefs Steve had left with his clothes is what gave it all away for Danny.

Yes, he’d woken up to find himself still in Tropical Crazytown and that sucked donkey balls. But he felt good. Like they would get this sorted out and he would be home in time for dinner.

He’d rolled out of bed and headed straight back to the shower (damn, did people here shower every few hours? It was so humid and no air conditioning, really?) and then, as he stepped into them….

_Wow._

Scissors. Someone, i.e. 99.9 percent likelihood it was Steve, had taken scissors to the size tag. Had cut most of it off, horizontally. But he’d missed a key piece, an inch and a half that held an indelible marker stroke– a thin, straight vertical line, slightly left tilted, with a distinctive second stroke suggesting the top of a capital letter ‘D’ and…

Most people wouldn’t notice it at all, unless their name actually started with a ‘D’ and the pen strokes looked exactly like their own handwriting.

He knew the label had been snipped hours ago by the fresh, jagged nature of the cut line. It wouldn’t be that way if it had happened any further back; it would have softened, maybe even frayed with even a single washing, but…

There it was, and there was that partial ‘D’ in his own damn writing and…. the socks. The socks on the chair were Thorlos – padded, ribs on the heels to cushion. It wasn’t a brand you saw everywhere – he’d only found them when he became a cop and started walking many miles a day.

_Oh. My...._

He had to sit for a minute -- needed to collect his thoughts and his breath before he could finish getting dressed.

~*~

“’Morning,” Steve said from the kitchen table, empty cereal bowl and half a cup of coffee in front of him. “Here’s a peace offering to apologize for my mood last night.”

Danny stopped a couple of steps from the table, watched Steve pushing a box his way, flipping said box open with a finger and his thumb.

“What are …those?”

“Think of them as Hawaiian doughnuts,” Steve said. “Though they're not originally from there, they're very popular. They’re called malasadas and you’ll like them.”

“You’ve already been up and out?”

“Uh. Yeah. Up for a run and then I went out for these. I’m a morning person, that’s all. Hawaii is a morning kind of place.”

Danny’s brain was still working through so many things as he bit into one, but….

“Son of a bitch, that’s good.”

“Told you.”

“Thanks. Really.”

“You’re welcome.”

Danny saw an empty mug on the counter near the coffee maker. He went and filled it and had a seat, taking another fluffy little ball of fried perfection and biting into it before he said anything more.

“Gotta say, it’s a nice house.”

“Thanks,” Steve said. “It’s my family home. Grew up in it, mostly.”

“You keep it up all by yourself? Inside and out, garden and…”

“Yeah,” Steve went to get more coffee for himself and came back to the table. “I hire help with the lawn a couple times a year to get it into shape. But …I like to do it. And I’d feel silly with a housekeeper. That still seems more…for grownups, I guess.”

“Yet, you send your clothes out to a laundry service for washing.”

The silence that followed, the way Steve’s eyes went dark and then purposefully blank – Danny almost felt bad about Scooby Doo’ing him. Almost.

“You know, those wash and fold services,” Danny went on, watching Steve’s cheekbones slowly turn pink. “They often ask you to mark the labels. Put your initials on things so if they get stuck in a dryer or found in someone else’s bag….”

“How the hell did you…”

“You hurried. Last night, when you were grabbing something for me to wear you snipped the tag but you didn’t snip away enough and…. I’m very smart. I noticed it’s my actual own damn underwear that I’m currently wearing, underwear that you handed to me from a drawer in your very own room. So...tell me.”

“What? Tell you what?”

“How long were we living together? Which one of us made the first move?”

“Seven months.” Steve looked too embarrassed to bother denying any more. “And you did. You… uh…. you definitely did.”

“Were we in love?”

“In… _what?_ Jeez,” Steve got out of his chair and did a 360 degree turn, hand going to the back of his own head in what looked like confusion, frustration. “I don’t know, Danny. I told you last night, I’ve never been good with words so…. no, we never said it. I didn’t need that. You didn’t seem to, either. We were happy. I know that much.”

“Fine. You’re not good with words then give me a number…”

“A number for what?”

“One to ten – when I died three weeks ago, how much did it hurt?”

“Are you …. _kidding_ me?” Steve looked like he didn’t know whether to push him against the wall and shake him stupid or leave the room in a hurry. “What do you think?”

“What do I think? I think some guys could live with another guy for convenience or sex or, you know, to split the mortgage. And if the other guy died, maybe he’d say a ‘four’ or a ‘six’ in response to the question and that’d be the truth. And that’s fine, that’s honest. But others…well, that’s what I want to know. What were we to each other? Give me a number, Steve. When I died, how much did it….”

Danny watched every word landing. He watched Steve folding– nothing anyone else might have spotted, but he saw it. He watched Steve’s face turn from angry to lost boy in the space of a few seconds; eyes suddenly damp, blinking, chest rising and falling faster, right hand forming into a fist and…

Steve walked out his own back door and out toward the beach, slamming it so hard Danny would have sworn the whole wall shook.

“Wow…”

He debated following him, but decided …yeah, maybe not.

“I’ll take that as a twenty.”

~*~

“What did you do to him?” Kono asked, worry and anger on her face as she walked into Steve’s living room.

Steve hadn’t come back. Danny thought about going out to ask him if he planned to ever go to work today, to perhaps try to figure out their shared Very Bad Situation? But he’d been afraid maybe he’d get decked.

He wasn’t sure he didn’t deserve a good, swift punch.

“I made a… tiny error in judgment,” Danny peeked toward the back door. “I thought ‘cause he’s mister cool and composed it meant his feelings weren’t in the game. Concerning him and me. Guess I was wrong.”

“You _know_?” Kono stared as if he head two heads, and it hit him this was the reason she and Chin had strongly offered to let Danny stay with one of them instead. “He told you?”

“He did not. But I’m smarter than your average bear,” he tried not to look too smug. “Look, I know I was pushing his buttons pretty hard but I really didn’t mean to hurt him. When I’m with a woman, that’s one thing. When I’m with a guy it’s more about…. I’ll spare you what it’s more about. But I guess…your commander isn’t the simple Ice King I took him for, and he and I weren’t just fuck buddies.”

“Oh, Danny, you are… seriously…” Kono was clearly struggling for a diplomatic way to proceed but she visibly gave up. “This you? This you is a complete ass.”

“Excuse me?”

“I said you’re an ass.”

Danny had a response on the tip of his tongue, which was that he hadn’t asked for any of this. 

But…he bit it back, looked her up and down, the way her face was hurting for Steve.

He opted to moderate himself.

“I’m sorry. I am what I am, Kono,” he said. “I’m not used to having to apologize for it. I come from a land far, far away, full of extremely straight shooters. I’m actually considered pretty low key there, so…. I’m genuinely sorry if this ‘me’ sucks compared with me you knew.”

“There he is,” Kono was nodding slowly, her face softening, eyes sad. “There’s our Danny. Just got a glimpse of him. We all miss you. You know? We’re all still shaken.”

“I don’t know. That’s part of the problem. I have zero context, no one seems to want to give me a whole lot of it and… hey, if this is supposed to be some kind of cosmic, existential learning experience where you all explain to me how wonderful my life was and all that crap? Well I don’t even want it. I just want to go home. I want out of here.”

“C’mon,” Kono headed toward the back yard. “Max called to say he’s bringing his cosmologist friend. Let’s see if we can get that process going.”

~*~

“So what you’re telling me is you have no freaking idea how I got here.”

“Correct,” The cosmologist adjusted his wire-rimmed glasses on his nose, peering at Danny like he was in the presence of a baby unicorn or a dinosaur or something. “Exactly.”

“And no idea if there’s any way to ever get me back where I belong right now?”

“Also correct.”

“Aren’t you supposed to be some kind of _genius?_ And you have ZERO clue?”

“Zero. No clue. Isn’t that… exciting?”

“No, it’s not exciting. It sucks. You’re an insult to your profession and your university and…I’m sure your parents are disappointed in you, too.”

“You’re missing the point, Mr. Williams.”

“As usual, I’m sure.”

“Your being here is a miracle; one of a scientific nature, in a realm where we don’t really like the word miracle. Time travel - not only is it theoretical, or was it theoretical until now but the thing is you’re only supposed to ever be able to go back. Not into the future.”

“And that’s because…”

“Technically, the future doesn’t exist, does it? It depends who you ask, though. There are others in my field that think maybe everything that will ever will happen has already happened and we’re just traveling along like pieces on a game board. You can see how for a man in my position this is…..exhilarating.”

“Goody for you. But for me? It’s doing less than nothing at all. In fact, it’s giving me agita.”

As unimpressed as Danny had been with Max the night before, he was doubly so with Max’s buddy Albert. What kind of a cosmologist wears cargo shorts and a t-shirt on a workday?

“No Einstein, are you, doctor?”

“It’s not the first time I’ve heard that one.”

“If you can find the way he got here…” Steve’s voice cut through the tension, not because he was wound up but because it came out so low and calm. “If you can get him home… can you do it in a way that… he’ll remember this? Timing-wise, I guess is what I’m asking? Can we maybe get him home right after he left and not right before?”

“I definitely hope so. Otherwise… there’s decidedly less motivation for me to help him at all.”

“Excuse me?”

“Think about it: If we help you get back and you don’t remember this, then there’s a high likelihood you’ll end up in a horrible causal loop. You’ll keep landing here having just died, keep getting sent home only to end up back here. Rinse and repeat. Over and over, endlessly for all recorded time.”

“You have got to be kidding me.”

“Afraid not. You’ll never know it, of course. But I wouldn’t wish that on anyone, would you?”

“And if he does remember?”

“He might go out of his way never to meet you at all. As in he’ll choose to never move to Hawaii. I certainly would, if I knew I were going to get shot to death here. Or, failing that, he’ll still come but will turn down your job offer. Your lives won’t intertwine the way they have but… at least the loop won’t happen and Danny won’t die and…”

“That,” Danny stabbed at the air in between them with an index finger. “I’m in favor of that.”

“Me too,” Steve cut back in. “But what else? I see a ‘what else’ on your face, doctor.”

“The loop scenario is bad enough but…perhaps your colleague here makes so many changes in his life that it affects not just him but four, eight, dozens, millions of people.”

“Like the crushed butterfly story,” Chin said and Albert nodded. “A time traveler crushes a butterfly while traveling back to the age of dinosaurs, and the fascists win World War Two.”

“STOP it,” Danny shouted. “That’s …freaking ridiculous. World War Three isn’t happening just ‘cause you send my insignificant ass home and you know it. We are doing this.”

“Danny…” Steve tried to cut in again but this time he failed.

“This is NOT about you and your personal feelings, buddy, this…”

“Did I say it was? I’m only concerned about…what I know you would and wouldn’t want if you were in your right mind.”

“Don’t pretend you’re looking out for me, dammit…”

“I’m not looking out for you,” Danny heard Steve getting closer to shouting, now. “I’m looking out for HER for you.”

“Excuse me?”

“Jesus, Danny. I… I can’t. I can’t talk to you about all this.”

Steve got up and left his own house again, as fast as he had this morning.

“Someone is going to make some sense of things for me,” Danny looked between Chin and Kono as he said it. “Right now. Or I’m gonna make you think the Danny who was pissing you off the last half a day or so was an absolute sweetheart.”

“C’mon,” Chin pulled out his car keys. “I think we can make it clear pretty easily – school’s about to start a few blocks away. Max, would you and Albert want to meet us at the office in an hour or so? Kono …come with me and Danny?”

“Sure.”

~*~

“What’s her name?” Danny asked from where they had him tucked in the back seat of Chin’s car, barely peering out the window at the kids walking in for class.

“Grace. You named her after a partner of yours.”

“How did you know her?” Kono turned back to look at him. “We didn’t even point her…”

“She looks like old pictures of my ma. She looks like my sister. I knew her the second I saw her.”

“Are you going to apologize to Steve when we go back? For acting like he was making it all about him? For…”

“Are we close? Grace and me? Were we close?”

“How do I put this…” Chin adjusted his car windshield mirror so it was angled down in the general direction of the back seat floor and Danny’s shoes. “See the knot in your laces? You two were only about that close, I’d say.”

“Oh…no. Oh crap. She looks so…. sad. She looks like she’s been crying. Oh, God. Wait, the guy with her he’s …wearing a uniform. Why is some random limo driver, some employee walking her to school? Where’s her mother?”

“It’s the life they live, Danny. They’re well off and she’s well taken care of.”

“I need to know every detail. How I died, exactly what time and where and how it played out. I have to know so I can do my best if this all works out. And your buddy Steve…he might be my significant other around here but he can’t be the one to coach me, I need a dispassionate outside perspective and that…he ain’t got.”

“No.”

“No? As in you won’t or…”

“We can’t tell you, because we weren’t there. It was just you and Steve, on a hillside chasing a suspect. He’s the only one who saw it happen. Who knows what was going on right before.”

“He feels guilty. That’s why he’s all torn up - he thinks he got me killed.”

“Steve’s clammed up since …the incident. He’s reverted into the man we all met, a guy who keeps everything really close to the vest,” Kono said. “I’m not going to pretend to know what he thinks these days but… I think you’re right. And there’s another issue; it’s all under review, being an on-duty officer death. If the group investigating finds him negligent in executing his duties…”

“He could lose everything. He’s lost his partner, he could lose his gig…”

“Exactly.”

“Oh hell. I did not ask for this. Any of it.”

“We know. But it’s on your plate, now,” Chin fired the car up to go. “And hey… we’d kind of like to have you back, too. Maybe if we work hard – together – we can never lose you at all.”

“You don’t get it, do you?” Danny said.

“Don’t get what?”

“If we get him back,” Kono looked at Chin. “He’s never coming here.”

“Exactly. You’ll never know. We’ll never meet. ‘Cause buddy, there’s no way in hell I’ll let my marriage fail twice. That’s everything I’m focused on right now. It’s all I’m aiming for – save my life, then my marriage….save my daughter’s family.”

There was a long pause while Chin pulled back out onto the road.

“Kind of hard to argue that, I guess. We need to make a pit stop on the way in: We’re gonna need a hat, some glasses to get you through security without freaking out half the building.”

It was kind of a glum ride from there – nerves pouring from Danny, something hopeful and at the same time sad from the front seat. Who knew what might happen? Or how hard it might be to hope for the very best, knowing what would be gained and what would be lost.


	3. What Steve Did

“We need to talk,” Danny said, giving Steve a hip nudge as they stood side by side at the computer table.

“Yeah.” Steve nodded, but didn’t seem in a hurry to move.

They were watching Chin, Kono, Max and Dr. Albert work. Danny had given them every detail he could about where he’d been running while chasing his suspect – the date, the time down to the minute, the blocks he remembered running past. He was able to point to a map/satellite image hybrid and show them right where he knew he fell. And if that crazy, expanding map with pictures of every inch of the world didn’t double confirm for him that he wasn’t in Y2K anymore…..wow.

Now they were busy searching up data: weather at the time it happened in New Jersey, traffic patterns for the neighborhood historically, reported crimes, accidents, smog, pollen and flood alerts and a dozen other factors. Doctor Albert kept listing off new things to look for, and Kono and Chin kept digging into them.

“Let’s go to my office.” Steve started that way and Danny followed.

He saw it happening from behind; Steve pulling himself up even taller as he walked, bracing. Danny got the idea that, investigators aside, Steve hadn’t talked with anyone about that day -- because he had no one left he felt safe enough to mourn with.

For the first time, he not only felt bad for someone other than himself, here… his heart kind of broke a little.

~*~

“We were arguing right before it happened.”

Steve barely waited until his backside hit the sofa in his office before he launched in.

He’d clearly wanted to sit at his desk for this, but Danny had shook his head and waved him over to the couch with him.

“It wasn’t like a shouting, screaming arguing but… it was more than the usual back and forth bitching we do.”

“Yeah? We were like that?”

“You could say we were. You could say…a person could set their watch by it. Why are you smiling?”

“’Cause I think it proves we had something real. I know me, and I know I wouldn’t bother to argue like that with you if….”

“Can we focus, Danny?”

Danny gave him the big shrug, arms coming up slightly in a mock appeal to heaven to please, maybe, listen to what he had to put up with. Take one little turn toward the emotional and… 

Steve wasn’t having that, was he?

“Sure. Tell me what were we arguing about.”

“Does it matter?”

“It might. Maybe our resident genius in the other room doesn’t have all the answers. Maybe if I make it home, this will all seem more like a dream or a déjà vu to me than a clear memory. What if some tidbit you don’t consider all that big is the one thing I pull out of the deepest recesses of my brain? The thing that saves me?”

“You’ve got a point, D. You do.”

“D? What, that’s your nickname for me? Couldn’t bother coming up with something more creative than using the first letter of my name?”

“It’s a fine nickname. It means… I guess it means I don’t need anything fancier. It’s clean, spare, no nonsense…”

“It’s lame.”

“I call you Danno a lot, too. But I didn’t make that one up. That’s Grace’s. Yours and hers and… I co-opted it. You hated it when I did, but… then you got good with it. I think after a while you liked hearing me use it.”

“That’s good. See, that’s the kind of thing that if you skimped? I wouldn’t have it to take back with me. Okay, so we were arguing and… why, again, were we arguing?”

“I’d asked you to move in with me and make it official. But you were afraid to take the plunge and tell Gracie, to change the nature of all our relationships. And you were scared to get in deep again after your divorce; you said no and I kept pushing and….”

“I kept saying no. You were afraid to get your walled-off heart turned into mincemeat.”

“I’m not walled-off, I…”

“Aw, c’mon, are you really gonna go with that argument? You’ve got a layer of emotional cement around you about three feet thick. I’m amazed I got in at all.”

“Then you know how much I lost, don’t you?” Steve looked so embarrassed Danny almost kind of hated himself again. Damn, these people they made him… “You going to keep sticking a finger in that wound, Danny?”

“No. I’m sorry. I really am. Okay, so we’re chasing a suspect… where?”

“The Koolau mountain range behind Kualoa Ranch. We were in a very steep spot with lots of dense brush and from what we were hearing on our two-way they had a bead on the guy a good distance off. We thought we had all kinds of time but…then there was a snapping sound, feet crushing some branches nearby. I thought it was one of the cows or bulls from the ranch that wandered but there he was, gun drawn.”

“And we were distracted. Arguing.”

“Your weapon was holstered, mine was pointed down. I drew on him and he aimed at you. I thought he was only looking to rein me in, to keep me from shooting. I mean, Jesus, the guy was wanted for mowing down a couple of kids with his car while drunk but I didn’t think…..he wasn’t a hardened killer.”

“You tried to talk him down?”

“Yeah. I’d barely gotten a word out when I saw it – the look in his eyes, like he was giving up. Like he knew he was going to prison and he couldn’t deal and…. half a second later he fired. He shot you in the chest, Danny. He looked me in the eyes and he shot you in the chest from four feet away.”

“Jesus, Mary and…. what did you….”

“I knew there was no way. Getting help in time, up as high as we were? You were gone. And I knew why he did it – suicide by cop.”

“What did you do?”

Danny ducked his head toward him, tried to connect with Steve’s eyes but Steve wasn’t really with him anymore. He was on that hill, seeing it all happening. And while he wasn’t exactly sobbing with grief the way some people might have… he was shaking, eyes glassy and for him? This must be as close to a breakdown as he’d ever allow himself to get.

“Steve, you _didn’t_ ….”

“I shot him in the head. I fucking shot him right between the eyes, Danny.”

“Oh…” Danny shifted closer and pulled Steve in to him. He didn’t think about it, he just did it.

“Stop. You don’t have to…”

“Hell, yeah, I have to. I might not know you like…you know me, but I’m still yours, aren’t I?” 

He felt Steve giving in, his chin digging in just over Danny’s shoulder and his body sinking gratefully into Danny’s arms. “This is what I would have done, isn’t it? If I could be here to listen?”

He tightened his arms around him as hard as Steve had the night he’d ‘landed’ here and felt him shiver, heard him sucking in air and …damn, Steve was big in his arms, solid and warm. He smelled as good as he felt, like sandalwood ginger soap and warm, tan skin.

It got very quiet and Steve didn’t let go for the longest time. When he did, when he pulled back, Danny looked up into his eyes again.

It was like a punch in the stomach, someone looking at him that way. Steve’s mask was down, and Danny could see he wanted to devour him right here, had wanted to devour him since the second Danny stumbled back into HQ the other night. It would be one thing if it were just lust but it wasn’t it was….want. Need. For him. Just for him.

Had anyone ever looked at him that way before?

Steve leaned in and stopped, and Danny gave him a slight nod. He let his lips fall open as Steve’s brushed over his, pressing, Steve’s hands putting Danny’s head at the angle he wanted and….

“We found it!”

Was she freaking serious?

Danny jumped as Kono charged in, the rest behind her. Apparently they all knew all about the two of them, because the sight of Steve half wrapped around him on the verge of giving him a good, deep tongue fucking failed to freak a single one of them out even an iota.

“Excuse me? It’s been about twenty minutes and you’ve solved this?”

“Well, not solved. Entirely.” Chin was behind her, looking embarrassed, now. “But we have a theory. We have something to base a plan on.”

“Guess we need to go hear this, huh?” Danny stood and extended his hand and Steve pulled himself up with it.

“Yeah. I’d say we do.”

~*~

“You didn’t tell me it was storming. While you were chasing your suspect back home,”

Albert was excitedly lining up documents on the computer table to present them to them.

“It wasn’t storming… yet.” Danny looked between the table and their expert, then at Max next to him beaming with shared pride that he’d brought them Albert. “It was humid, thunderstorms possible but…”

“Oh, not possible. It happened. There was a lightning strike less than seven feet from your location at the exact second you left. You didn’t fall chasing your target…”

“I got knocked on my ass….”

“And landed here,” Albert drew a line from one satellite map to the other, finger stopping behind the HQ, near the parking lot. “Not only here, but here eleven years later.”

“Which is possible how?”

“Trinium. It’s a super heavy metal. Blast it full of electromagnetic energy and do the same thing instantaneously with a load of it somewhere else and…. boom. Slippery slide to somewhere you never planned to be. Not only somewhere, apparently, but some when. Which is the really stellar part.”

“Yeah, and again …stellar for you, buddy, not me. Okay, so you’re telling me there was something made of Trinium on the street where I was chasing our con artist?”

“That street is parallel to one that’s full of self-storage units. A whole field of them,” Chin pulled up and flipped through ten-year-old zoning records they’d pulled up. “One of the sheds must have contained some because when the lightning hit….”

“This happened…” Albert pushed back the zoning records and pulled up air quality reports for the same location. “Extremely high levels of free radicals and ozone – a huge burst of them the second the bolt hit. It was so strong, that it took a week for the levels to fully drop. That’s pretty much a signature of energized Trinium and I guarantee, if we test the air in the land behind this building… it’ll match.”

“What, you think someone has a load of super heavy metal in the trunk of their car?”

“No,” Albert said. “I think it’s all over the parking lot. As in the quartz that’s ground up and added to the cement to give it that nice, hard shine when it’s paved over. The rocks here on Oahu? Packed with quartz. And quartz that’s a fair percentage Trinium.”

“We didn’t have any rain the other night,” Chin pulled up the recent weather history for their zip code. “But I heard thunder. One of the booms hit minutes before you came rolling in, Danny.”

“So…what? I have to go stand in the back parking lot and wait for another perfectly timed set of opposing lightning bolts?”

“Uh, no.” Max seemed surprised Danny hadn’t considered the rarity of what they’d just described to him. “Not unless you have a few thousand years to burn. Perhaps a few hundred thousand.”

“So I can’t go home?”

“I wouldn’t say that,” Albert jumped back in. “Not yet. Not until we run probabilities – look at electrical storm frequency here and there, cyclical weather patterns, and then project out. We have the advantage of knowing where the door is on the other end…we just need to find where and when it can be on this side; a predictable storm with the correct degree of energy…”

“I.E. extremely strong, much magnetics, big bolts of electricity” Max interpreted.

“Yes,” Albert picked it back up. “…and one that will touch down on a ten foot square area with sufficient heavy metal content to connect here to there. To where you belong.”

“And how long will that take you? Running the probabilities.”

“Oh… hours, at least. Days, maybe?”

“And what if it the last perfect storm in my potential lifetime is coming ten minutes from now?”

“Then…” Max pulled up chairs for him and for Albert. “We’d better get to work. And someone better go get us some groceries. And snacks. Twizzlers would be helpful. We’ll be here.”


	4. Now and Then

“So… he came out of the jungle how? At what angle?”

“Exactly like this,” Steve walked the few feet between them, turning Danny less toward the ocean and more toward Steve’s house. “He was like that. And you were here…”

He took a few large steps back and turned sideways to him.

“Facing like this -- toward me.”

They had gone to get their team some food, and then their team had sent them home. Chin and Kono agreed to take turns, one resting while the other stayed with Max and his colleague, supporting them until they had their answer- no matter how long that might take. 

“Swap places with me,” Danny marched over, his impatience showing, and gave Steve a wave back toward where he’d just been standing. “I wanna get this down, see it in my head. Tell me what, exactly, was going on when you heard him and he jumped out?”

“Like I told you at the office, we were arguing.”

“Right, but …what had I just said? Or had you just said? I mean the _second_ before. Don’t make that face, don’t _tell_ me you don’t remember ‘cause I know you do.”

“We have no way to know if you’ll even remem…”

“I will. I _have_ to remember, don’t I? I need to, so Grace doesn’t lose her home and you don’t shoot some ‘effed up yutz in the head like he’s an animal and then have to live with what you did the rest of your life. So I will remember, Steve – if you freaking _tell_ me.”

“I had just… said I was sorry I met you. I said I screwed up. Letting you in. That I wished I hadn’t.”

“Oh,” Danny stopped flat, shifting on his feet, hands finding his pockets. “Well… that’s kind of awful, huh? For both of us? Did I say anything back?”

“You didn’t get the chance. But I think…you were about to call ‘bullshit’ on me. I didn’t mean it. I swear, Danny, I …”

“It’s okay. Look, you didn’t, technically, even say it to me,” Danny walked his way, hands out, fingers finding the belt loops on Steve’s jeans. “Well, you did but… knowing me I probably deserved it.”

“What are you doing?” Steve asked as one of Danny’s hands went north to cup his cheek and pull their mouths closer. 

“Picking up where we got interrupted.”

“Why?”

“‘Cause you need a break from tough questions with sad answers and… well you’re not the best with words, are you, babe? Maybe you can _show_ me you didn’t mean it.”

~*~

“Slow down, tiger,” Steve heard Danny fight for air to breathe the words out, pushing him back a step. “Let a guy get a hand in edgewise?”

Danny’s lips were kiss-reddened; mouth and chin wet from the thorough tongue-lashing Steve gave him the second they got in his bedroom. Danny’s shirt was nine-tenths off, hanging by one wrist where he hadn’t quite shaken it away. His pants and the black briefs were at his ankles – and yet Steve was still fully dressed.

“C’mon,” Danny tugged Steve’s t-shirt up, nodding when Steve took the hint to pull it off and kick his shoes under the bed. “That’s more like it. Cripes, those arms…. ” 

“I’d say I’m sorry for mauling you,” Steve let Danny pay some respect to his biceps with his fingertips, and then work open his pants. “But I’m not. When you think…you’re never going to have someone again and then you do? You go a little crazy. Y’know?”

“I don’t know. But lucky me right now. That’s all I’m saying.”

He hadn’t just kissed Danny woozy already, he’d gotten his hands, his mouth on nearly every inch of him; adoring on the planes of his chest, his abs, kneeling to taste his cock, to run his tongue up and down it, to tease the head with feather-soft licks before taking him in and sucking deep with long, loud pops every time he pulled off.

Danny had been more than happy to let him, to stand there and fight the urge to rock into Steve’s mouth until he was close, to stare down and see those beautiful eyes looking up at Danny as he sucked. 

“You planning to top, Steve?” He asked now as he got a hand on Steve, stroking, Steve the one leaning in this time, his own hands finding Danny’s ass. “I’m thinking that’s what you want, right?”

“Hell, yeah.”

“Belly or back?”

“On your back,” Steve said and Danny smiled.

On his back so Steve could see him. Could watch him. And remember this.

“Fine. But if you’re going in at a tight angle…you’d better lube that monster good. I don’t want to wake up limping.”

“Flattery….” Steve gave him a push, and then manhandled him onto the bed. “Will only get you fucked harder, Danno.”

~*~

“If I’d moved in… it would have worked out. Wouldn’t it?”

They were drifting off, Steve on his back and Danny curled toward him.

“It would if I had anything to say about it,” Steve answered, eventually.

“I was gun shy but…you never would have left me. She did, though. If she hadn’t left me for one guy it would have been for some other guy. She always would have left me. And you wouldn’t have. Funny, isn’t it?”

“If you mean…not funny ha-ha, funny sad, then…yeah. Guess it is, in a way.”

Steve thought about saying more, like telling him he wasn’t about to bad mouth Danny’s ex-wife or try to sway him to let things play out in a way that brought him back to them – but Danny was out.

 

~*~

“What? Wait…give me a sec I’m still half…” 

Steve’s voice, thick with sleep. Danny woke to see him sitting up in bed next to him, phone to his ear.

“Okay… hold on… I’m putting you on speaker. Danny’s here. Say it again, what you just told me.”

“We’ve got four hours,” Chin’s voice. “We have to get him to the ranch, and hike in to the specific location Albert found. It’s our only chance, guys. The only match that will generate Danny a portal home.”

“That’s… crazy, are you sure…”

“Right now, Danny. Now, or five hundred and sixty three years from now.”

“Up. Getting dressed,” Steve took it off speaker, bracing the phone against his ear as he searched the dark floor for his jeans. “Text me the exact directions, we’ll meet you.”

~*~

“The place we need to go: It’s right where it happened, isn’t it? It’s where I died?”

Danny looked at the info in Chin’s text message from the passenger’s seat, and saw Steve nod ever so slightly, hands tight on the wheel.

“How’d you know, D?”

“By the way you barely had to look. And the way your face fell when you did.”

“What do you suppose it means?”

“Well, let’s see… I get zapped into the future, not just randomly but straight to the friends who lost me. They have just enough time to tell me to shut up and listen and fill me in on how to save my own life and…then on top of it all, the place I need to go home from is the one location I most need to see, to remember in order to be ready if history repeats itself. I’d say…either I’m being given a second chance or this is one mother of a coincidence.”

“And which do you think it is?”

“I’m going with ‘B’ actually,” Danny hit the power button on the phone and set it between them, by Steve. “Because in the grand scheme of things…I’m not that important.”

“I know a few people who disagree with you.”

“Yeah but you’re biased. You actually _need_ me, you poor, huge, pathetic waif.”

Steve didn’t say anything. Danny knew it was because there was nothing left to say.

~*~

“ _’Getting dressed,’_ huh?” Kono grinned at Danny.

They were standing a few yards behind Steve and Chin who were a few yards behind Max and Albert and all of Albert’s equipment.

“You caught that?” Danny nudged her.

“Laughed my butt off. In any given world…you two….”

“Are you lobbying?”

“No,” Kono shook her head. “Are you nervous?” 

“Not right now. Give me a few minutes, though, and I will be,” Danny gave her a ‘what am I supposed to do’ shrug. “They’re only gauging exactly how close to a lightning strike to stand me, right?”

“That’s it. I mean… you could get fried.”

“You could face far worse, in a way.”

“How’s that?”

“Well, I get fried? I’m done. Again. But if I make it, as in I disappear when the moment we are all here for happens? If I go and nothing changes, and you just follow on with your morning… then Steve has to live knowing we failed. That I’m either in a nightmarish time loop or dead or on Jupiter and…”

“What do you suppose happens to us if you do make it?”

“I don’t know. But I think you won’t ever actually be standing here on this hillside this particular morning,” 

Danny saw Dr. Albert give Max the thumbs up, planting a boot in the mud and pointing. 

“And I think…they’ve found my mark. Smells like rain, doesn’t it? Won’t be long now…”

~*~

“I don’t even get a hug goodbye?”

It wasn’t lost on Danny how the others had pulled back, all except Steve. Dr. Albert had his eye on his watch like it was seconds not minutes and that was pretty freaking unnerving, too…

“I’m not big on PDAs,” Steve stepped in, one arm going around him. “Danny, I understand. I know you have to prioritize and… I know you can’t pick me. I just hope you’ll … be okay.”

“Steven…”

“Yeah.”

“Shut up and kiss me.”

And again, Steve’s actions spoke louder than his words: The kiss Danny got was loose, open, hands soft in his hair, on his hip, Steve’s lips perilously close to drawing Danny a straight line from Steve’s mouth to his heart. 

When they stepped apart, Danny saw Max waving wildly. He nodded and headed for the spot and…this time it wasn’t like tripping or falling. It was like being thrown by a blast of blue white energy – thrown straight into his past, and into his new future… whatever that would be.

The last thing he saw was Steve six feet away – eyes closed, head down.

Bracing.

~*~

**Three Weeks and 96 Hours Ago….**

“Will you ….drop it? At least until we get out of here?” 

Danny kicked and pushed at the brush they were moving through, annoyed to be the one clearing the path. Steve normally cleared the path but… Steve was having an actual meltdown, by his self-protective standards, at least. 

“It’s not like we’re gonna solve this argument in the middle of the damn jungle, halfway between chasing down our guy and handing him off to HPD, right?”

“Maybe we can, Danny. Maybe you can give me an answer and get it over with?”

“I have given you an answer – fifteen times. And the answer is ‘not yet,’ okay? Is that so damned unreasonable? We’ve only been together a few months…”

“It might not be unreasonable, D, but… it’s a sign. If you don’t want this now… look, just admit to me you’re never moving in, okay? Just say it.”

“Wow, you are _stubborn like bull_. I mean, really, I knew your family screwed you up bad, but…”

“Yeah. Damaged goods. That’s why you’re hesitating. You know what Danny… it’s official: I’m sorry I met you. I’m sorry I …let you in. I never shhhh…iiittt…” 

Danny stopped walking so fast that Steve nearly tripped over him, both of them swaying as Steve swore and stumbled and grabbed Danny for balance and…

“What?”

“Oh….. _hell_. Oh… no…..” Danny was whiter than his own shirt, whiter than the most haole pale Steve had seen him, ever. “I don’t know. I don’t _know_ what’s wrong, I just…. feel like…. something…. _Crap_ …… get down!”

Danny pushed and Steve chose to go with it, to drop.

He heard the crunch of branches as Danny dropped, too, spinning, gun drawn, firing into the dirt and…

“Son of a….” Steve dragged himself on the ground, grabbing at the Browning .45 that came scrabbling over the rocks where their suspect had half dropped, half flung it after getting shot through the shoe. “Got him?” 

Steve tucked the suspect’s gun in his belt, training his own on the guy as Danny wrestled with him. 

“You okay, Danny? You got him?”

“Yeah. It’s all good.” 

Maybe it was, but Danny still looked both shaken and stirred. He wasn’t pale anymore – he was green.

“It’s all good, Steve. Jesus. That was ….shit, I think that was a close one.”

~*~

“Move in with me,” Steve said it against Danny’s skin, kissing down Danny’s gently abused chest with the stubble burn all around one nipple and bite marks near the other. 

“Give up. Do it, give…the hell up and move in with me….”

“This is coercion…” Danny bucked twice when Steve’s tongue pushed into his belly button, Steve’s hands pulling apart his ass-cheeks at the same time, kneading them. “It’s not…fair. Ah _hhhh_ hhh…. not fair at all. I almost goddamn died today.”

“Life ain’t fair, Danny….” Steve sucked and bit at the spot by Danny’s left hipbone that seemed to have a direct, nervous-system connection to Danny’s dickhead and yeah, he felt it twitch in his hand, felt Danny on the edge of losing it already as he took him in his mouth and dropped down deep and smooth and fast and…

“Yeessssss……” Danny gasped and twisted and Steve smiled around Danny’s cock. 

That wasn’t just a random ‘good, yes, good’ kind of yessss….. that was…..

“Fuck, yeah… okay, …. _mmmmmm_ ….you win you rotten….ooo _ohhhh_ hhhh….”

They usually got up and cleaned up and rearranged themselves afterward but tonight they stayed where they fell.

“Something happened out there,” Steve said. “It’s not just me, right? On that hill, something… changed?”

“It’s not just you,” Danny dug his fingers into Steve’s hair behind his ear, tugging absently. “I have zero idea why but… I know for sure. I know you’ll never bail out. You’ll never trade up and leave me. That’s why I’m in.”

“Trade up?” Steve pushed Danny around and over, into the smaller spoon. “How could I? There is no ‘up’ from this.”

It wasn’t the last time they wondered out loud about that day and that hill. The fact that it was unknowable, just what the hell had happened?

It was a kind of magic. One they were happy to never fully understand.

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [Art for From Thin Air](https://archiveofourown.org/works/2065005) by [Galadriel34](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Galadriel34/pseuds/Galadriel34)




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